Jim Gordon:
[reading from the book "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens]
I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

Bane:
Home, where I learned the truth about despair, as will you. There's a reason why this prison is the worst hell on earth... Hope. Every man who has ventured here over the centuries has looked up to the light and imagined climbing to freedom. So easy... So simple... And like shipwrecked men turning to sea water from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying. I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope. So, as I terrorize Gotham, I will feed its people hope to poison their souls. I will let them believe they can survive so that you can watch them clamoring over each other to "stay in the sun." You can watch me torture an entire city and when you have truly understood the depth of your failure, we will fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny... We will destroy Gotham and then, when it is done and Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to die

Bane:
I AM the League of Shadows, and I'm here to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny!

Bane:
You fight like a younger man, with nothing held back. Admirable but mistaken.

[Batman uses an EMP device to cut the lights]

Bane:
Oh, you think darkness is your ally. But you merely adopted the dark; I was born in it, moulded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING!

John Daggett:
Oh really? Do *I* look like I'm running Wayne Enterprises right now? Your hit, on the stock exchange, it didn't work, my friend! And now you have my construction crews going around the city at 24 hours a day! How exactly is that supposed to help my company absorb Wayne's?

Selina Kyle:
There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.

Bane:
We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you... the people. Gotham is yours. None shall interfere. Do as you please. Start by storming Blackgate, and freeing the oppressed! Step forward those who would serve. For and army will be raised. The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world that we know and endure. Courts will be convened. Spoils will be enjoyed. Blood will be shed. The police will survive, as they learn to serve true justice. This great city... it will endure. Gotham will survive!

Bane:
[addressing media reporters outside the prison]
Behind you is a symbol of oppression. Blackgate Prison, where a thousand men have languished under the name of this man,

[holds up a picture of Harvey Dent]

Bane:
Harvey Dent, who has been held up to you as the shining example of justice!

John Blake:
[to Gordon, at Blake's apartment]
Commissioner, we need to keep you moving until we can get you in front of a camera.

Bane:
You have been supplied with a false idol to stop you from tearing down this CORRUPT CITY! Let me tell you the truth about Harvey Dent from the words of Gotham's police commissioner, James Gordon.

[holds up Gordon's speech papers and begins to read]

Bane:
"The Batman didn't murder Harvey Dent, he saved my boy then took the blame for Harvey's appalling crimes so that I could, to my shame, build a lie around this fallen idol. I praised the mad man who tried to murder my own child but I can no longer live with my lie. It is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth and it is time for me to resign."

[calls to prisoners]

Bane:
And do you accept this man's resignation? Do you accept the resignation of all these liars? Of all the CORRUPT?

[prisoners roar with approval]

John Blake:
Those men locked up for eight years in Blackgate, and denied parole under the Dent Act, based on a lie?

John Blake:
It needs it now more than ever. You betrayed everything you stood for.

Jim Gordon:
There's a point, far out there when the structures fail you, and the rules aren't weapons anymore, they're... shackles letting the bad guy get ahead. One day... you may face such a moment of crisis. And in that moment, I hope you have a friend like I did, to plunge their hands into the filth so that you can keep yours clean!

Doctor:
No, that's because there is NO cartilage in your knee, and not much of any use in your elbows or your shoulders. Between that and the scar tissue on your kidneys, the residual concussive damage to your brain tissue, and the general scarred-over quality of your body, I cannot recommend that you go heliskiing, Mr. Wayne

Bruce Wayne:
Well, Selina Kyle, I know you came here from your walk-up in Old Town, a modest place for a master jewel thief. Which means that either you're saving for retirement, or you're in deep with the wrong people.

Selina Kyle:
You don't get to judge me just because you were born in the master bedroom of Wayne Manor.

Bane:
Now, this bomb is armed! This bomb is mobile! And the identity of the triggerman is a mystery. For one of you holds the detonator! And we came here not as conquerors, but as liberators to return control of this city to the people. And at the first sign of interference from the outside world, or for those people attempting to flee, this anonymous Gothamite - this unsung hero - will trigger the bomb. For now, martial law is in effect. Return to your homes, hold your families close, and wait. Tomorrow you claim what is rightfully yours.

Ra's al Ghul:
You, yourself fought the decadence of Gotham for years with all your strength, all your resources, all your moral authority and the only victory you achieved was a lie. Now you understand Gotham is beyond saving and must be allowed to die.

Miranda Tate:
You have a practiced apathy, Mr. Wayne. But a man who doesn't care about the world doesn't spend half his fortune on a plan to save it. And isn't so wounded when it fails that he goes into hiding. Have a good evening, Mr. Wayne.

[Blake arrives at the Broucek Cement Company plant; as a worker leads him through the yard, Blake spots a worker that he immediately recognizes as the cement truck driver he spoke to during the Gotham Stock Exchange robbery]

John Blake:
Detective, now. And uh... as a detective, we're not allowed to believe in coincidences.

[the worker behind Blake promptly swings at him with a knife. Blake smashes his hand, pulls his sidearm out and shoots him. The driver then grabs Blake from behind. As Blake struggles with the driver, he aims his pistol, and fires into the cement mixer. The bullet ricochets and hits the the driver in the back]

John Blake:
[furious]
What are you doing here? What are you working on?

[the driver dies. Blake looks at his pistol, and tosses it away, disgusted. He calls Gordon on his cell phone]

John Blake:
Commissioner, it's Blake. I got two dead witnesses and a lot of questions. Call me when...

[Blake freezes as he notices some barrels]

John Blake:
Wait a minute. There are four barrels of Polyisobutylene. That looks like motor oil right next to it. Jesus! They're not making cement, they're making explosives!

[When the elevator office stops, they find Bruce waiting in the reactor chamber]

Bruce Wayne:
I thought you might like to see what your investment built.

Miranda Tate:
No fossil fuels. Free, clean energy for an entire city. Three years ago, a Russian scientist published a paper on weaponized fusion reactions. One week later your reactor started developing problems. I think this machine works.

Bruce Wayne:
Miranda, if it were operational, the danger to Gotham would be too great.

Miranda Tate:
Would it make you feel better to know that the Russian scientist died in a plane crash six months ago?

Bruce Wayne:
Someone will work out what Dr. Pavel did. Someone will figure out a way to make this power source into a nuclear weapon. I need you to take control of Wayne Enterprises and this reactor.

John Blake:
It's about that night, this night, eight years ago. The night Dent died, the last confirmed sighting of the Batman. He murders those people, takes down two SWAT teams, breaks Dent's neck and then just... vanishes?

Alfred:
You see only one end to your journey. Leaving is all I have to make you understand, you're not Batman anymore. You have to find another way. You used to talk about finishing a life beyond that awful cape.

Bruce Wayne:
Rachel died believing that we would be together; that was my life beyond the cape. I can't just move on. She didn't, she couldn't.

Alfred:
What if she had? What if, before she died, she wrote a letter saying she chose Harvey Dent over you? And what if, to spare your pain, I burnt that letter?

Alfred:
It means your hatred... and it also means losing someone that I have cared for since I first heard his cries echo through this house. But it might also mean saving your life. And that is more important.

John Blake:
Not a lot of people know what it feels like to be angry, in your bones. I mean, they understand, foster parents, everybody understands, for awhile. Then they want the angry little kid to do something he knows he can't do, move on. So after awhile they stop understanding. They send the angry kid to a boys home. I figured it out too late. You gotta learn to hide the anger, practice smiling in the mirror. It's like putting on a mask.

Alfred:
[to Bruce]
Remember when you left Gotham? Before all this, before Batman? You were gone seven years. Seven years I waited, hoping that you wouldn't come back. Every year, I took a holiday. I went to Florence, there's this cafe, on the banks of the Arno. Every fine evening, I'd sit there and order a Fernet Branca. I had this fantasy, that I would look across the tables and I'd see you there, with a wife and maybe a couple of kids. You wouldn't say anything to me, nor me to you. But we'd both know that you'd made it, that you were happy. I never wanted you to come back to Gotham. I always knew there was nothing here for you, except pain and tragedy. And I wanted something more for you than that. I still do.

[Bane's men announce their entry into the stock exchange, as the food delivery man shoots down a trader, while the shoeshiner and janitor fire their guns into the trading screen. As the screens shut off, Bane comes in and walks over to one trader]